JULY 15, 2002

Toyota and Rampf

THERE are rumors in F1 circles that Toyota Motorsport has offered Willi Rampf, Sauber's technical director, twice his current salary to move to Cologne to work for the team. If the news is true it is interesting as it would mean that Toyota would have to push Gustav Brunner aside. At the same time it is clear that Brunner's TF102 chassis was not a match for the Sauber, despite the fact that the Sauber has had less horsepower than the Toyota.

It remains to be seen whether Rampf will take up the supposed Toyota offer. In the past he has shown himself to be a man not overly motivated by money. At Sauber he has had considerable success and he may prefer to stay where he is - and perhaps wait to see whether BMW is going to decide whether to do its own thing in the future. Rampf is a BMW-trained engineer and if the Munich firm did ever consider building its own chassis he would be high on the list of recruits.